Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[David]

Blog post here.

Due to the subject matter, we're going to be watching the thread closely. Please don't start a flame war about religion or get into why someone's religion is good or bad. Keep the focus on the game - and remember we're here to have fun!

[Ragnarok101]

What sparked this one?

False Idols is IMO the best so far in the questing stuff. I found Usurpers a little too much 'promise' versus 'reality' considering it's essentially just talking to various Diktat personalities for the moment, with a lot of hanging threads, but FI really manages to wrap itself up neatly.

[Wyvern]

Hm. Guess I have some missions to go track down and run through.

...Um. Hm. I did deliver Jethro back to Jaspis. I have Jaspis in my comm listings for Gilead. Jaspis has nothing to say to me and I have no idea where to go / what to do to actually start False Idols.

Edit: Lol, nevermind, literally started up automagically when I decided to just do a tour of every Church-held world and got to Asher.
Edit2: Further lol, because hey, Kumari Kandam system? Oh, yes, that's where my home base is. Crocodile makes for an excellent industrial base.

[David]

What sparked this one?

Uh, now that you ask, I don't quite remember.

It probably came from doing a bunch of planning similar to what was described in the post but for other major narrative threads in the game. I can't responsibly talk about all that unimplemented content, but I can talk about what came out in the last patch. So here we are!

Hm. Guess I have some missions to go track down and run through.

...Um. Hm. I did deliver Jethro back to Jaspis. I have Jaspis in my comm listings for Gilead. Jaspis has nothing to say to me and I have no idea where to go / what to do to actually start False Idols.

It can only trigger if 7 days have passed since the ending of Knight Errant, 90 days have passed since the start of the game, and a few other conditions [ie. zero atrocities - Jethro doesn't like those]. From there, just visit Luddic worlds and you'll be randomly contacted by Bornanew.

[StuffyEvil]

The early sketches are pretty neat, I presume the crane in the early sketch for Mazalot can be considered "Heavy Machinery"?

[David]

The early sketches are pretty neat, I presume the crane in the early sketch for Mazalot can be considered "Heavy Machinery"?

I suppose it could!

Trying to remember why I moved away from that sketch; probably because it was too focused on the idea of old, ruined infrastructure and I wanted to portray a place that felt more populated to fit into the encounter with Virens during Knight Errant.

[Bungee_man]

In the first stage of the quest, I was sort of lost on why Jethro was important at all - he didn't seem all that special. In this one, with his confidence returned, he retains his personality but comes across as clearly competent in a way I don't think I'd have appreciated if he'd been introduced like that. I'm not sure if this is intentional, or if it'd hit the same without the chronological gap between the two stages, but I very much liked the effect - seeing the guy at his lowest, and then getting to say "Oh, that's what she saw in him." later on, instead of him just coming in as a hyper-competent detective that you don't see paying his dues. Definitely a fun quest.

Implementation-wise, I have a few questions. First off, looking at rules.txt, I can see that it must've been hard dealing with the myriad different combinations of things that could've happened, especially as that set grows logarithmically over time. Are there plans for how that will be handled as the quest chain continues? It's one of the game design problems that has always interested me, seeing developers grapple with it.

My second question is on faction quest introductions. The Luddic Church quest requires a demonstration of interest and good faith (though not a commission or a religious faith) for the player to be approached, while the Sindrian Diktat quest all but Shanghais the player into Macario's entourage even if he's spent the past three cycles bombing Volturn, and the Hegemony quest (including its tie-in to Rao's new interactions) is obscure enough that it's almost an easter egg. Are there plans to unify this later on, or is it meant to be indicative of the various factions' personalities?

[ishiggydiggydowop]

Thanks for the blog post, David. It's always great to see your process, the scaffolding and rough drafting that ends up becoming what we all end up enjoying. And the tasteful [REDACTION]s are truly tempting me to think what they could be. I sure hope that foreboding outside force doesn't utterly atomize my vague cohesive Luddic Church!

I think you've done an exceptional job exploring the Luddic Church, and by proxy the Path. I think it's probably the easiest faction/trope to paint with a broad brush and then flanderize from a Player perspective, and I think you've really done a great job showing it as perhaps more multipolar and variable than the more democratic factions. And I do think that your comparison to Alpha Centauri is apt - credits, progress, it can all be stripped away incidentally in a research laboratory, and what better to represent that a group may arise to impede that than a humanistic religion against unfettered technocratic commerce? This, and the new factions added have also converted a large plurality of the playerbase into LC and LP respecters, simply because they have more proof that the Domain is not truthful nor omnipotent.

Overall I still do appreciate the "mash 1 to progress to more fleet battles, Starfarer", just as I do the "false choices". I think allowing Jethro to disappear respects player agency, even if it does screw the player out of a great story. There is some allure to not knowing what false choices are actually options to fork the story. I am now unfortunately urged to play through the quest again and see if Jethro can take a bullet, despite his personal cost. 

Also, despite your discounting of the bridge officers/minor fleet characters, I will say that I truly do appreciate that they seem to have some traits to them. It's things like your chief engineer teaching you how to Transverse Jump out of an Abyss gravity well because he was a smuggler that really give the world that extra shine to it (and enforce that the Devs Think Of Everything). Even the small choices like calling Jethro, Jeff (let me explain to him it's affectionate, not me doing some Orientalist *** and erasing a Luddic name damnit) and waving to Alviss do quite a lot in the player's head to endear these characters to them and make them memorable. 

I will keep reading these blogposts til I die, and again I think you truly have great writing skills. I got legit chills for the first time in years reading the encounter/crew description of the Oldslaught, and truly enjoyed reading the abandoned station/derelict salvaging flavour text that was added, such as the Derelict Eden/Garden salvage storylet. Can't wait to see what else you cook up, hope we get to see more of Bornanew Superstar.

[David]

I'm not sure if this is intentional, or if it'd hit the same without the chronological gap between the two stages, but I very much liked the effect - seeing the guy at his lowest, and then getting to say "Oh, that's what she saw in him." later on, instead of him just coming in as a hyper-competent detective that you don't see paying his dues. Definitely a fun quest.

Thank you!

I really like how you sum this up. If he just showed up as the coolest dude on the block, it wouldn't hit. He'd feel like a Mary Sue (and maybe he is? But I hope whatever he is, is earned.)
There are characters can enter with a hypercompetent bang - Macario, for instance - but that wouldn't be right for who Bornanew is.

First off, looking at rules.txt, I can see that it must've been hard dealing with the myriad different combinations of things that could've happened, especially as that set grows logarithmically over time. Are there plans for how that will be handled as the quest chain continues? It's one of the game design problems that has always interested me, seeing developers grapple with it.

(It scares me too.) But I think there are many ways to acknowledge previous decisions without having to write entire parallel scenarios. Like I say in the post, deciding you want something doesn't mean you'll always get exactly that. As long as the game is respectful (in a meta-sense, somehow) about denying certain choices, I think the story can still work.

Speaking of, cleaning up The Usurpers is no small task but I do have a plan. Which, um, I can't talk about now. Sorry!
 

My second question is on faction quest introductions. The Luddic Church quest requires a demonstration of interest and good faith (though not a commission or a religious faith) for the player to be approached, while the Sindrian Diktat quest all but Shanghais the player into Macario's entourage even if he's spent the past three cycles bombing Volturn, and the Hegemony quest (including its tie-in to Rao's new interactions) is obscure enough that it's almost an easter egg. Are there plans to unify this later on, or is it meant to be indicative of the various factions' personalities?

That's a great reading, particularly re. the Diktat. It is not something I thought about in regard to each faction, I just did what felt right in the moment. The Diktat stomping all over you, possibly literally, just feels thematically correct. The Church, on the other hand, requires a bit of patience and a demonstration of faith (of sorts).

(lots of nice words)

Thank you so much, it's really rewarding to hear that you're enjoying all of this!

[Ruddygreat]

<josh sawyer's name of the rose mentioned.png goes here>

I do love terrible aristocrats. (Anyone who has played in one of my D&D games knows this.) They’re so much fun to write because they can be absolutely unhinged due to their immense wealth and privilege. Need to move a plot forward with absurd, contradictory motives? Just have an aristocrat get a stupid idea in their head! Easy.

It's also been very fun to see this come through with Zunya as well, love all the different flavours of terrible aristo that are floating around the persean sector!

(sidenote edit : also absolutely love all the writing in the Threat ship descs, really enjoy how they explain a lot without really saying too much!)

[waypastfuture]

Daaaaaavid please give us the luddic AI core I don't care if it's a sort-of-cliche I just love that thematic you can't just off hand mention it as a random idea you had in the blog post_{(in fact, you very much can.)}.
Anyways I love this questline, I hope I didn't missunderstand the whole Bornanew Files concept as indicative of there being possibly more in the future. Thank you for writing this little world into something so much bigger than meets the eye.

[Wyvern]

Random impressions while playing through...
* Feels weird to get sent to Asher for nanoforge technicians when I have my own colony right there on Crocodile with a pristine nanoforge that's been there for cycles. (I get that you can't cover every possibility... but the mission -does- already acknowledge it if you mention that you administer your own colony, which makes it then not acknowledging that colony later feel a bit off. Maybe if there was some reason that required the Church's nanoforge specialist?)

And then reading through the actual blog post...
* Huh, there's commentary on the options for a nanoforge technician... oh. "As you can see, many details were cut or changed." Okay.

Yeah, story-wise, I see why you went the way you did there; give us a character to interact with rather than having to be generic about where/who they are... but on the other hand, there wasn't anything in that interaction that made it feel like yes, we really needed to be talking to this specific technician. Maybe play up secrecy/security a bit more or something? I dunno.

Edit: Oh, hm. That's a bunch of words complaining about a relatively minor thing in what was, overall, a good set of missions. And I do appreciate getting to see some of the progress that went into this; will have to replay and see what other ways things can play out.

[David]

<josh sawyer's name of the rose mentioned.png goes here>

I was so instantly stressed out by having conflicting dinner appointments in that game that I quit playing. I should pick it up again.

(sidenote edit : also absolutely love all the writing in the Threat ship descs, really enjoy how they explain a lot without really saying too much!)

Ahhh, thanks. I think I'll save talking more about that for another blog post...

Daaaaaavid please give us the luddic AI core I don't care if it's a sort-of-cliche I just love that thematic you can't just off hand mention it as a random idea you had in the blog post_{(in fact, you very much can.)}.
Anyways I love this questline, I hope I didn't missunderstand the whole Bornanew Files concept as indicative of there being possibly more in the future. Thank you for writing this little world into something so much bigger than meets the eye.

1. 
2. 

*thumbs up*

Yeah, story-wise, I see why you went the way you did there; give us a character to interact with rather than having to be generic about where/who they are... but on the other hand, there wasn't anything in that interaction that made it feel like yes, we really needed to be talking to this specific technician. Maybe play up secrecy/security a bit more or something? I dunno.

Edit: Oh, hm. That's a bunch of words complaining about a relatively minor thing in what was, overall, a good set of missions. And I do appreciate getting to see some of the progress that went into this; will have to replay and see what other ways things can play out.

Haha, all good. I'm pretty sure there's a line in there about "being trusted by the Knights" or something like that, but it's not made a huge point. It feels like sometimes you can just assert the next step without really explaining why, specifically, it's important if there's enough momentum. It's a slow moment, so maybe there isn't - regardless, it seems to work well enough!

[AYellowShadeOfBlue]

Just wanted to chime in and say that one of my favourite moments in this quest was on the bus ride over to the cathedral of holy exodus, where Bornanew talks about the differences between the Ineffablists and the Mundanians within the church. It was wonderful.

It's also wonderful how the player-character is characterized with constantly using space/fleet terminology. Horus launching a Reaper Torpedo into Menes' unshielded breach was inspired. And fluxing out after being shot. It's one of those things that's everpresent in the writing but really sells the player being who they are.

[aegrisomnia]

Excellent quest, blessings of Ludd upon you. I really enjoyed all of the space metaphors and all of the nitty-gritty of the church.

Also, I know you probably didn't mean for anyone to see this, but in the logs for Starsector (rules.csv) there's a note next to one of Jethro's lines that says "look, i'm not trying to write flirty dialog, but." and it made me have a little chuckle.